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John Pea: Boone County’s second settler and rugged individualist

This illustration, which shows a prairie home similar to that built in 1846 by John Pea, is from The History of Boone County, Iowa: (1880). Image courtesy of Boone County Historical Society

An early pioneer is breaking the sod of prairie. This illustration is from The History of Boone County, Iowa: (1880). Image courtesy of Boone County Historical Society

The pioneer hunter returns to his cabin home in the woods. Image courtesy of Boone County Historical Society

By Suzanne Caswell

Boone County Historical Society

In 1846, Boone County was as yet undesignated. The area was the domain of Indians and bears, of elk and foxes, of forests and untamed prairie lands. That was soon to change. In December of that year, Iowa became a state. It was only a matter of time before permanent settlers came to what would become Boone County to establish homes and set down roots.

Already, a U.S. Dragoon officer who had explored the Des Moines River area in 1835, Col. Lysander W. Babbitt, had revisited the valley of the Des Moines, where he established a temporary home at Noah’s Bottom (later called Rose’s Bottom), north of present day Moingona. Babbitt stayed during the winters of 1843 and 1844 before moving to Knoxville and later to Council Bluffs. A few years after leaving Boone County, Babbitt became a two-term state legislator (1848-1852) from Marion County, during which time he initiated the move of the state Capitol from Iowa City to Des Moines.

The change in Boone County’s fortunes came early in 1846 when Charles W. Gaston moved to Iowa from Missouri and settled at Elk Rapids. Other settlers, including a 46-year-old Pennsylvanian named John Pea, were not far behind. Pea was born in Pennsylvania in 1800, but as an adult had worked his way across the country before arriving in central Iowa in May 1846. The 1880 History of Boone notes that he had “resided in every state intervening between this [Boone County] and the place of his birth.” Pea had moved on when the settlements around him had become too crowded or conditions in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri were not to his liking.

“Mr. Pea was a pioneer of the old stock; a positive, outspoken, blunt man,” the 1880 History declared. He settled in Section 2, Township 83, Range 26, at a timber point on a tributary of the Des Moines River, according to early Boone County accounts. Both the timber point where his log cabin was located and the creek were named for him. Pea’s Branch Creek begins on the southeast side of Boone and runs southwest through the Ledges State Park where it empties into the Des Moines. Pea’s Point, later called Flat Rock, was about two miles southeast of the City of Boone. A Des Moines River crossing, directly west of Boone and Boonesboro, became known as Pea’s Crossing or Pea’s Ford: it too was named for Pea.

Pea was the second permanent Boone County settler; Charles W. Gaston was the first. Gaston had arrived in what was to become Boone County in January 1846. Because Gaston and Pea had arrived within a short span, a debate waged for a time about who came first. It was determined Gaston had arrived Jan. 12, 1846, while Pea arrived May 26, 1846.

Early Boone County historian Corydon L. Lucas stated, “John Pea could not have been the first settler of Boone county even if he had arrived before C. W. Gaston did. John M. Crooks and Jas.[James] Hull and their families came to the county along with John Pea. Either one of those men would and did have as good a right to be the first settler as John Pea.” Despite Lucas’ conviction that Hull and Crooks came with Pea, the two Boone County histories are not definite about the timing of their arrival. The 1880 History states: “In May 1846 came John Pea, James Hull, John M. Crooks, S. H. Bowers and Thomas Sparks. They all settled in or near the timber bordering on a creek which empties into the Des Moines river about three miles north of Elk Rapids. Two of them, John Pea and James Hull, came near the same time, probably on the same day, although they were not from the same neighborhood in the East and probably had not met till arriving in this county. The others came later, but all during the Month of May, 1846.” The 1914 History of Boone County gives the date of April 15 (probably in error as all other sources say May) for the arrival of the Pea, Crooks and Hull families. It also notes they came from Indiana, which may have been true of the Crooks and Hull families but Pea came to Boone County from Missouri.

In another early newspaper article Lucas states: “At Pea’s point John Pea built a log cabin, made rails and fenced about five acres which he put under cultivation, on which he produced considerable produce for the coming year. Not only this, but Uncle John, as he was called, was an able hunter and game was plentiful and he kept his family well supplied with meat. When winter came he did little else but hunt.”

Pea’s Point gradually became a small settlement. James Hull, John M. Crooks, S. H Bowers and Thomas Sparks and their families had settled there either at the same time as Pea or shortly thereafter. By 1851, the first hotel, called the Boone County House, had been built in the community and in 1853 a short-lived saw mill was constructed at Pea’s Point.

But what sort of man was Pea? The 1880 History of Boone County describes him as a typical frontiersman who had a “kind heart and generous impulses.”

As an experienced woodsman and trapper-hunter, Pea was the man Henry Lott approached to help him find his son, Milton, in December 1846, after Chief Si-dom-i-na-do-tah had attacked Lott’s cabin near the mouth of the Boone River, killing cattle and frightening Mrs. Lott so badly that she later died. Lott had angered the Indians, and they took their revenge on him and his family. Lott witnessed the attack and made his way to Pea’s Point where he told his story to Pea. Intending to track down the Indians, Lott, Pea and several other men returned to the Lott cabin, where they found no Indians but Mrs. Lott in a bad way. No longer needed, the men, except for Pea, returned to their homes. Pea helped Lott care for his wife until she died, and then accompanied him in his search for Milton.

Following Si-dom-i-na-do-tah’s assault on the Lott cabin, 12-year-old Milton had gone for help, but died from exposure along the Des Moines River near Centerville, a later Boone County settlement in Yell Township located on the west side of the Des Moines River, just northwest of Boone. Pea and Lott found Milton’s frozen body and placed it in a tree trunk, intending to return later to bury the boy. Accordingly, equipped with spades, axes and, of course, guns, Henry Lott, John Pea, John Pea Jr. and several others set out from Pea’s Point in January 1847 to bury young Milton. At the site where they had placed Milton’s body in the log, a grave was dug and a crude coffin constructed. The boy was laid to rest along the river he had so desperately followed in his search for help.

Pea also was involved in the expeditions by white rangers following the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857, when Indians raided Spirit Lake and settlements around Lake Okoboji, killing between 35 and 40 settlers and creating panic among settlers from Lake Okoboji to Spirit Lake to Fort Dodge, Webster City and even as far south as Boonesboro.

Pea’s bluntness translated into strongly held opinions and beliefs, which he did not refrain from expressing. Although a patriot and “ardent admirer of the American Union,” Pea was a “copperhead,” the 1880 History declared. “Pea was an ultra Democrat of the anti-war stamp and was a good representative of that class of citizens known in every community throughout the north, vulgarly called copperheads.” Copperheads were northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War. Republicans labeled them Copperheads after the poisonous snake, but the Copperheads themselves adopted the name, cutting out the heads of Liberty from copper coins, which they wore as badges.

Pea may or may not have tried to inhibit recruitment for the Civil War, but, as the history reported, he did verbally insult some recruits who were leaving Boonesboro to fight in the war. “The persons to whom these remarks were addressed, being in charge of a commissioned officer, did not dare to resent the insult, but they treasured up in their memory the words spoken. This was especially true of one of the number, a man who was physically Pea’s superior, and when in the course of time he returned to the county on a recruiting mission he assailed Pea on the streets of Boonesboro, and after addressing the old man in the most abusive language knocked him down, whereupon Pea inflicted upon the person of his assailant two or three frightful stabs, from the effects of which the officer was likely not to recover.” The situation escalated when other returned soldiers heard of the incident and with “highly colored” accounts demanded Pea be lynched. Civil authorities stepped in when a rope intended to hang Pea was discovered. Pea was taken to “place of safety.” Despite the recovery of the stabbed officer, there were strong anti-Pea feelings and “a powerful effort was made to convict Pea of a crime which would have sent him to the State prison.” Pea was indicted by the grand jury when it next met, but he had managed to enlist “the sympathies of many of the leading citizens, and through the untiring efforts of his counsel, ex-Judge Mitchell [Isaac J. Mitchell 1827 or 1829-1883], he was acquitted.”

Pea remained in Boone County for the rest of his life, although the 1880 History of Boone County noted that “after the county began to be tolerably well settled up Mr. Pea became somewhat discontented and conceived the idea of again emigrating. He even made preliminary preparations to drive his stakes for the sixth time.” His plans to move to Nebraska fell through; perhaps he was too old to pull up stakes. Pea died Jan. 19, 1874, and is buried in the Bluff Creek Cemetery, which is located northwest of Boone on the west side of the Des Moines River.

Over the years, Pea’s name has been spelled in various ways-Pea, Pease, Peas, Peece. Both Boone County Histories spell the name Pea, although a map that appeared in the 1880 History spells Pea’s Branch creek “Pease Branch.” The name inscribed on his tombstone in the Bluff Creek Cemetery is John Pea.